Ch 9

• Contemporary Indian Art began with the British rule in India after the decline of the Mughal empire and the end of classical and medieval art in India
• Pioneers of contemporary Indian Art include Raja Ravi Varma, Abanindranath Tagore, Amrita Shergil, Rabindra Nath Tagore, and Jamini Roy
• Indian painters were influenced by western art movements such as German Expressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Dadaism, and Surrealism
• A combination of western technique and Indian spiritualism became the essence of Indian art during this period
• Print making techniques used by Indian artists include Etching, dry point, aquatint, intaglio, lithography, and oliography
• Krishna Reddy, a famous print maker, created the masterpiece "Whirlpool" in 1962 using the intaglio process
• In "Whirlpool", Reddy aimed to capture the force of nature and created non-representational images with elements like stars, flowers, and clouds
• Benode Behari Mukherjee, a Bengal School artist, created the mural "Mediaeval Saints" in 1947 using the Fresco Buono technique
• Benode Behari Mukherjee based his paintings on nature and used simple and rational lines influenced by Japanese artists
• Despite being blind later in life, Benode Behari Mukherjee continued to create art and experimented with different mediums
• The "Mediaeval Saints" mural depicts saints of different religions of India with emphatic lines and limited colors like brown, yellow ochre, and terraverte
• K.C.S. Panikar created the artwork "Words and Symbols"
• K.C.S. Panikar's mural "Mediaeval Saints" mainly uses calligraphy to cover the space
• Panikar used mathematical symbols, Arabic figures, Roman Scripts, and Malayalam Scripts to create a design resembling a horoscope
• Colours play a nominal role in Panikar's mural "Mediaeval Saints"
• K.C.S. Panikar was a student of D.P. Roy Choudhary of Bengal School in the Madras School of art
• Panikar established the first artist village of India near Chennai named "Cholamandalam"
• Francis Newton Souza's painting "Landscape in Red" is an experimental cityscape
• In "Landscape in Red," Souza used calligraphic lines arranged with colours to capture the look of a city as a concrete jungle
• The predominant colour in Souza's "Landscape in Red" is red with splashes of green
• F.N. Souza was expelled from J.J. School of Art and was one of the founders of the "Progressive Artists Group" in 1947
• Souza was greatly influenced by Picasso and Matisse in his art
• Souza settled in London and New York